Thread: How to fix a spoiled company culture?

I want to feel for you. You make it too hard to do so at this time. When you are asked questions you give very short guarded answers as if trying to not give us the ammunition to call you on your short comings.

You come across as you wanting to hear us to tell you that what you want to do is the way to go. Instead of doing what you need to do.

You type from both sides of the keyboard. You want advice. You know better then anyone else.

Your bill work out at equal to less then what you pay employees at the OT rate.

Sounds as if your pricing is too low combined with giving guaranteed OT even when there is not OT work.
CPA?
What CPA?
Don't need no stinkin' CPA to know that paying employees more an hour then you are billing is not going to work.

If you spend anytime here reading other threads you will see Landscapers crying the blues that they can not afford to pay employees $12 hr and try to get away with paying straight time when they should be paying OT.

That this industry does not allow them to pay $20 hr.

I think most of your employees where to leave if you take away mandatory OT and full day pay and go home when it rains. They will find it very hard to get a new employer to come any where near what they would be making if they stayed with you when you take away the mandatory OT. You need to point this out to them.

Time for a company meeting. Explain that the company can no longer afford to pay for mandatory OT. That they are wanted to stay though they are free to look elsewhere though without the needed changes the business will close so either way their jobs will be gone.

WOW
WOW
WOW.

I missed the post where he said "we bill at $30/hr"

What 32 says is true then…

Face the facts, there is nothing you can do, $20 people have to go.

Rates have to raise.

where are these dudes going to get their current deal anyway?
No where.

They are going to go make their own businesses if I had to guess.

there's NO other way around this.

You need to hire a consultant.
Or… What you could do, is simply close shop.

TPendagast with all due respect you have no experience with employer tax credits with obamacare either.

And I didn't say do not do this I said be careful. And my reasons were sound the benefits are no where near as good as they first posted and I knew this.

Further more I had already read what his hourly billing rate was and knew the cuts needed were much deeper than simply a bate an switch move when you give me the ot and I give you insurance.

Now the dealership I was asked to look at has 2 employees that have insurance through that company. One of them costs an unreal $2,400 a month in premiums. Now that sounds outrageous to me too but the mans over 50 and has a kid on the policy and that's the cost. So as much as you'd like to dismiss my advice T I would think by now you would give me some credit as I do not lie and I do not talk about what I don't understand. And I put in several hundred hours researching and reading up on the health law.

Great ideas and advice, especially TP. I'm going to review all this and see what I can figure out. I'll still be here next season so I'll let you guys know how it turns out. I haven't had anyone quit yet..they are compensated too well to leave.Posted via Mobile Device

I just can't believe that you don't have a cap on PTO.... I thought that only the state, govt or fortune 100 companies allowed unlimited accrual of vacation.

My wife works for a hospital, up until 4 years ago they were owned by the city. Big mega corp CHS came in and bought the what was a financially failing hospital. You know the first thing they did.... Limited PTO. Employees with less than 10 years could have 14 days of PTO per year in addition to holidays. Employees with 10+ years can have 21 days of PTO yearly. Sick leave is unlimited. They offered to buy employees PTO over the limit at 50% for a one time deal, if not you just lost it.

They turned around a failing hospital in 2 years. Granted, there was a lot of other changes they made get back to the good, but CHS is a full-profit organization. If you don't make them money or find a way to make them money, you are gone.

Great ideas and advice, especially TP. I'm going to review all this and see what I can figure out. I'll still be here next season so I'll let you guys know how it turns out. I haven't had anyone quit yet..they are compensated too well to leave.Posted via Mobile Device

TPendagast with all due respect you have no experience with employer tax credits with obamacare either.

And I didn't say do not do this I said be careful. And my reasons were sound the benefits are no where near as good as they first posted and I knew this.

Further more I had already read what his hourly billing rate was and knew the cuts needed were much deeper than simply a bate an switch move when you give me the ot and I give you insurance.

Now the dealership I was asked to look at has 2 employees that have insurance through that company. One of them costs an unreal $2,400 a month in premiums. Now that sounds outrageous to me too but the mans over 50 and has a kid on the policy and that's the cost. So as much as you'd like to dismiss my advice T I would think by now you would give me some credit as I do not lie and I do not talk about what I don't understand. And I put in several hundred hours researching and reading up on the health law.

Actually, I DO have experience with the healthcare tax credit as I have worked with more than one company that opted for it, and three that have not.
In each case, their numbers were all completely different.

When dealing with company based insurance you are looking at a standard rate, not an individual rate… so no you don't get rated different for a 50 year old employee than you do for a 40 year old employee.

You do not HAVE employees, TWO employees in a prospective business is a completely different barrel of monkeys than 20 plus employees.

Great ideas and advice, especially TP. I'm going to review all this and see what I can figure out. I'll still be here next season so I'll let you guys know how it turns out. I haven't had anyone quit yet..they are compensated too well to leave.Posted via Mobile Device

I just can't believe that you don't have a cap on PTO.... I thought that only the state, govt or fortune 100 companies allowed unlimited accrual of vacation.

My wife works for a hospital, up until 4 years ago they were owned by the city. Big mega corp CHS came in and bought the what was a financially failing hospital. You know the first thing they did.... Limited PTO. Employees with less than 10 years could have 14 days of PTO per year in addition to holidays. Employees with 10+ years can have 21 days of PTO yearly. Sick leave is unlimited. They offered to buy employees PTO over the limit at 50% for a one time deal, if not you just lost it.

They turned around a failing hospital in 2 years. Granted, there was a lot of other changes they made get back to the good, but CHS is a full-profit organization. If you don't make them money or find a way to make them money, you are gone.

know this is good point.
Historically, the health care industry has had really good benefits, but since the advent of obummer care they have been getting that axe to everything they have been accustomed to.
And while this has caused lots of disgruntled healthcare workers, there is little they CAN do, because the changes are industry wide, so there is nowhere they can go where it's different.
Many hospital, businesses, clinics and private practices couldn't really afford the bennies health care workers were getting and wanted to cut them, but couldn't due to what he competition was offering, but now that they can all blame Obama and they have all been cutting, the workers don't have a choice, so they stay.

In this case, Landscaping wise.
They can only go to a huge company, like Brickman etc.
and even then I don't think they are going to get the deal you say they are getting now.

In light of that, it's probably safer to make cuts, than it would initially seem so.

know this is good point.
Historically, the health care industry has had really good benefits, but since the advent of obummer care they have been getting that axe to everything they have been accustomed to.
And while this has caused lots of disgruntled healthcare workers, there is little they CAN do, because the changes are industry wide, so there is nowhere they can go where it's different.
Many hospital, businesses, clinics and private practices couldn't really afford the bennies health care workers were getting and wanted to cut them, but couldn't due to what he competition was offering, but now that they can all blame Obama and they have all been cutting, the workers don't have a choice, so they stay.

In this case, Landscaping wise.
They can only go to a huge company, like Brickman etc.
and even then I don't think they are going to get the deal you say they are getting now.

In light of that, it's probably safer to make cuts, than it would initially seem so.

Not really related to the OP, but along with my post... When the city owned the hospital, toward the end of their tenure they had cut all full time staff to between 32-36 hours weekly, down from 40. Starting this year since the turnaround CHS has given back the hours, so all full-time staff is 40 hours.

As you stated about disgruntled workers, oh ya... there were plenty, but even the "big guys" realize that they need to take steps not only to make money, but make employees happy. So by giving employees hours back during the week and increasing their take home pay, that's a good thing. Do they think anything about the limited PTO today, no... Actually in my wife's department there are only 3 employees counting herself and they were never allowed to take more than a week anyway due to staffing and scheduling.

I would evaluate customer jobs and employees. Cuts have to be made. What combination of employees and jobs will be profitable? What pay rate cut would cause the adequate number of employees to quit?

High margin jobs will need to be pampered with outstanding service. Low margin jobs will need to have rates raised. If the customer doesn't want the price increase, they have to be let go. Additionally, new jobs will have to be bid profitably.

Employees also have to be evaluated. Which employees are the best workers and which are the worst workers? Which workers are low performers but could be great employees with more experience? Restructure your crews so that good employees are working your high margin accounts and providing the best service, and bad employees are working your low margin accounts. In fact, I'd send the bad employees to the worst, labor intensive jobs and raise their performance standard without allowing any excuses. My goal would be to have them quit since they are not productive anyways.

(In Oklahoma, unemployment insurance rates go up if you terminate or lay off an employee but not if they quit on their own.)

Also, the "benefits" that led to the present condition need to be evaluated and restructured to be more in line with the industry standards for your location, but yet still allow the company to be profitable. If the PTO has to be bought back, then do so, but within the restructuring budget.

I know many here may not like my suggestions, but it looks like a dire situation that needs extreme measures.

Of course, you could just avoid it all and sell the company, then walk away.